Why Yamaha just hit a new MotoGP low

Yamaha's long-term MotoGP struggles reached another pinch point at the Austrian Grand Prix, leaving its riders "very shocked" and "embarrassed" by their performances. 

The Red Bull Ring has long been a tough track for Yamaha, which has been winless at the circuit since its return to the calendar in 2016. However, its difficulties in Austria exacerbated those facing its current line-up, with all four riders slamming the M1 package after a fruitless weekend - the first of the season where neither the factory team nor satellite outfit Pramac managed to score. 

The four Yamahas were so far off the pace in Sunday's grand prix that they were posting almost identical times to last year's race - despite having a completely new bike and V4 engine - with Jack Miller comparing his 1m38s pace to "f***ing Baggers times".

Fabio Quartararo had qualified ninth but slipped right back to 17th over the grand prix - yet he was still the best Yamaha, with his stablemates filling 19th through 21st places. 

Multiple reasons were given for the riders' struggles, which mostly circled back on the reinforced tyre Michelin brought to Austria - which exposed Yamaha's problems with lack of grip, wheelspin on acceleration, and an obscenely high amount of tyre wear at the end of the race. 

Pramac Yamaha's Toprak Razgatlioglu said he was "really angry on the bike" after questioning how it was possible to have "no grip" at the start of the race - labelling the weekend "the second-worst race in my life" after this year's Thailand season opener. 

"Yesterday, we ride very well. OK, when we fight with Pol [Espargaro], we lost the group, but in the end he did a good job," Razgatlioglu explained after Sunday's grand prix. 

"Today, I expected more, but in the beginning, no grip. If the bike has no grip, the bike has no acceleration. In the end, last six laps, I thought to myself, 'How is it possible I finish the race?' Because on the straight, the bike just [wheel]spins. 

"The first corner exit, when I pick up the bike, the bike just spins. Everywhere, I feel just a spin the last six laps."

Pramac team-mate Miller agreed this was the second time they've experienced the issue, with the first coming in Thailand, where Michelin also opted for the hard-cased tyre. 

However, Razgatlioglu and Miller both said they couldn't accept the wheelspin on acceleration that they had to deal with at the Red Bull Ring being just down to the tyre issues.

Miller further added that Yamaha had struggled with electronics problems throughout the weekend, with its set-up seemingly aggravating the tyre and further creating wheelspin.

"We're not able to transfer that weight smoothly, so any sort of sharp input or whatever you have on this tyre, it upsets it, and then it creates spin. And once the thing starts spinning, it doesn't f***ing recover, and then the laptime just slowly but surely gets slower," Miller said. 

"The other guys, especially the Aprilia, are really able to transition the power really well and then use more power. We could have 40bhp more, but we're not going to be able to use it cause we're going to spin, especially with this casing."

To compound these problems, excessive tyre wear cost Yamaha's runners further time, with Miller only having a small strip of rubber left on the middle of his rear tyre while Quartararo compared his laptimes at the end of the race to those of Moto2 race winner Izan Guevara.

Given Quartararo's rift with Yamaha, it's perhaps unsurprising he put less blame on the tyre issues due to all manufacturers seemingly struggling. However, he still admitted those problems did cause his times to fall away substantially.  

"I knew already, like in the sprint, my tyre was destroyed at the end, so I didn't know what was going to happen, but I feel what's going to happen," Quartararo said.

"I think my last laps were like Guevara at the end. We struggle a lot; we spin. The amount of spin that we have was big."

Team-mate Alex Rins, meanwhile, saw the funnier side in the disappointment while trying to keep Franco Morbidelli at bay. The VR46 Ducati rider was running six tenths a lap faster than the Yamahas after falling down the order before eventually overtaking Rins, Miller and Razgatlioglu. 

Although Rins was hoping to keep tabs on Morbidelli, he was ultimately unable to and joked that the positive from the weekend was just being able to run in the 1m34s, more than five seconds off the best race lap.

"It was quite funny because our pace was really bad compared to the others, in general," said Rins.

"So when I saw in the pitboard that Morbidelli was catching me, when I saw that he was at 0.4s that he recovered from one second, I just turned around and made [a wave past gesture] like this because we don't need to lose time fighting when another rider catches you like this. 

"And I tried to analyse him, I tried to ride in a good way, but it doesn't matter. He left me. So yeah, in the end, I would say it was great to hold the laptime there [in the 1m34s] and that's it."